Greyghost | How To Cancel Timer Programs on the Workchoice WC2021 Digital Timer

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How To Cancel a Program on the Workchoice WC2021 Digital Timer

The Workchoice WC2021 is (or perhaps by the time you read this, "was") Wal-Mart's take on a cheap digital light or appliance timer. It's so Workchoice WC2021 digital timer

cheap, in fact, that whoever designed it forgot to include a way to cancel the operation of all timer programs. A button to manually control the timer's on or off state is provided, but its overriding effect only lasts until the next timer event occurs. In other words, it's not permanent. Sometimes you want to stop a timer from running any of its programs for a period of time.

There is actually a way to stop any of the programs from running without having to use the reset button, which would destroy all the stored programs. Press the "COUNT DOWN" button once to enter the countdown timer mode. There is no need to set a time. Press "COUNT DOWN" again to start the timer running. Moments later, press the OVERRIDE button (on top of the timer's case) until the timer display indicates that it's off.

This will maintain all the programs you've set in the timer's memory, but they will not run automatically until you press one of the other three function (dusk to dawn, custom on/off or vacation) buttons.

The exceedingly clever person who designed this timer also thought it a good idea to use obnoxiously bright blue LEDs in each function button and that putting tri-wing screws on the bill of materials would actually keep people out of it. (Note: it's actually dangerous to open this timer up any time it's plugged in since the power supply is a capacitive dropper. There is absoultely no isolation between the power line and the timer's electronics. So don't do that. The previously linked Harbor Freight bit set will technically get you in there, but you'd have to ream out the recessed holes in the timer's case before the bits would fit.)

Other Stuff

A small NiMH battery keeps the timer running and its memory intact for somewhere around 24-48 hours depending upon its state of charge and overall health. The latter will decline over time. I'd imagine it is possible to find a cheap replacement from the usual friendly Chinese sellers on eBay.

If you need the instruction sheet that came with this timer originally, it's here.

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Copyright © 2017 William R. Walsh. Some rights reserved. Your rights to reuse and reproduce this material are governed by the terms and conditions available from the top level page of this server. Written 10/29/2017, updated 11/29/2017. (In reading this page earlier, I came to think there was a grammatical error somewhere. Now that I'm looking for it, I can't actually find it. It may have been on another page. Who knows? Obvious not the guy who is running this place!)